HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! AND A GO-AWAY TO YOU!

I have been in the industry for twenty years, and I’ve never had this happen to me. I am absolutely stunned. It’s a fairly steady Thursday night at [Restaurant]. It’s after the dinner rush and there are only maybe eight or ten tables left in the restaurant, two of which are mine. One of them is an older couple and the other is a four-top of guys in their twenties.

The four-top informs me they have a birthday at their table. Now, the only reason I actually care is that at my restaurant, we don’t bring cake or sing; we all get together and do an annoying yell. I am (very proudly) the absolute loudest yeller on the staff —hear me out in the parking lot loud — so everyone is always asking me to yell for their table, and I do it because it’s an excuse to vent some nightly frustration.

I gather my servers, check on my other table, and head to the four-top to do my thing. I get through the first part, and it’s all going well, until the elderly gentleman from my other table comes up behind the other servers and starts tapping them all on the shoulder and loudly demanding his check. Half of my fellow yellers completely lost their steam, one of them screws up the words, and I manage a pretty lame finish. I don’t even have a chance to address the guys at the table because this old a**hole is demanding his check.

I walk him to the register closest to the front door, give him his ticket, and make him stand there while I close him out. He then proceeds to stand there for five minutes, talking to me about his and his wife’s road trip. She is now sitting alone at the table, yelling loudly for him to get the check he’s just paid. Finally, I get them both out of there and go back to my four-top.

They all collectively praise me for how I handled the guy, and we all agree he was very rude. I apologized for him screwing up their thing, and they were cool. I bought birthday guy a beer and they left happy, and they tipped very well.

But my mind keeps coming back to that old man and his audacity! If it ever happens again, I think I will intentionally redirect my yell right in the face of someone with the gall to interrupt a birthday yell.